Future Dance is a 25-week program offering free dance classes at nine selected Clark County elementary schools. Third, fourth, and fifth grade students were recruited for the program during an orientation assembly featuring performances and a question and answer period with principal dancers of the Nevada Ballet Theatre. At the end of the program year, children danced in their own fully produced and staged recital for parents, peers and teachers.

Creative Communities provided a 30-week sequential dance-training program for children aged 6-8 living in Las Vegas public housing communities. In their weekly classes, children were given the rudiments of dance in a syllabus-based program that prepared them by their third year of training for the Royal Academy of Dance Syllabus program offered at the Academy of Nevada Ballet Theatre.

PROJECT OUTCOMES:

The programs immediate and intermediate success lies in the childrens' improved social interaction, family involvement, skills of listening, responding, punctuality, and memorization. Since the program's inception, a ninth elementary school has been added to the Future Dance roster. The program has also developed a strong staff of professional teaching artists trained for the Future Dance and Creative Communities programs.

• Back to YouthARTS Grantees